The VT-to-RPGTable Online Transition Plan

[RobEng]

At the time of this posting, there are still some contractual details being ironed out with Wizards of the Coast but in the interest of communicating our plans to the users, I think I need to jump the gun with the announcement. I know there have been a lot of questions about how the Dungeons & Dragons Virtual Table will become the RPGTable Online and I hope that we are answering most of them here. I appreciate your patience and understanding with our position and I view the eagerness as a positive sign that people care about RPGTable Online.

Firstly, I want to post up our tentative schedule for the transition. All times are Eastern U.S. Daylight Savings Time, GMT-4.

• Monday July 30, 2012 2 PM--Virtual Table closes down from the Wizards of the Coast website (access to campaigns will close at 11 AM, the campaigns and access to the VT pages will go down at 2)
• Tuesday July 31, 2012 12:01 PM--Deadline for VT users to submit their name for campaign transfer to RPGTable Online (see below)
• Wednesday August 1, 2012 from 9 AM to 3 PM--GameTable Online closes to prepare for the addition of RPGTable Online
• Thursday August 2, 2012 3 PM--RPGTable Online comes up for service!

Business Model:
Access to RPGTable Online will be free for anyone to use. Just register at GameTable Online and you can use RPGTable Online. Along with free access to the game platform users get 3 tile sets, 28 player tokens, and 20 common monster tokens. We have created a virtual store to purchase more objects to use with RPGTO. Prices will be as low as $.30 for a monster token, $1.20 for character tokens, and a few dollars for tile packs. Purchase will be used with the new GTO currency, GTO Gold. GTO Gold is valued at $.06 per Gold Piece.

In addition to the basic Free RPGTable Online experience, we will also be offering a Premium User subscription for as low as $7.99/month. The Premium Subscription will give you repository storage of 50 maps, 50 PCs, 50 uploads per month of user generated images, the ability to share your maps, adventures and characters with other Subscribers, and a monthly allowance of 35 GTO Gold to spend on game pieces. Both Subscribers and non-Subscribers can purchase additional repository slots and art uploads.

Transferring Your VT Campaigns to RPGTable Online:
When the VT closes down but before RPGTable Online launches, GTO will be capturing existing VT campaigns and assigning them to their profile at GameTable Online. To facilitate this transfer, GTO needs to know your Wizards of the Coast Community Site screen name and GTO user name. If you do not have a GTO user name register at http://www.gametableonline.com now and send the needed information to support@gametableonline.com. If you have already sent this information, please verify that we got it at viewtopic.php?f=61&t=3655. The deadline for submitting your screen name/user name is Tuesday July 31, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Eastern U.S. Daylight Savings Time (GMT-4).This transfer will be a bulk transfer so we do not need to know your campaign name or count. It will include the participating PCs. If PC’s player is not designated, the game master will be able to reassign the character.

Saving Characters from the Dungeons & Dragons Insider Character Builder:
Characters built using the DDi Character Builder can be exported from the DDi site to your local computer and then uploading it in RPGTO campaign. RPGTO has no direct link to the DDi Character Builder but we believe this will allow DDi subscribers to still reap the benefits of the Character Builder.

Game Tokens and Tiles:
Yes! We have more game pieces for your adventures. At this time we have over 300 items in our RPGTO store and art for more being organized. In time we plan to be reaching out to artists and game publishers to include objects to appeal to a variety RPGers.

D&D Monster Data:
Currently we do not have access to official 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons monster data but are working on it.

Adventure Sharing:
If you have a Premium Subscription you will be able save your game in the Repository. You can choose to share with others who also have a Premium Subscription.

Importing Images to Your Campaigns:
This has ability has been built but we are still finalizing the cost. We are still factoring the cost of storing the images and the bandwidth cost. Right now we have storage as part of the subscription and al a carte option for non-subscribers. We are trying to determine if we have to cover the expense for storage, at the upload stage, or at both.

The Relationship with GameTable Online and RPGTable Online:
Rather than fractionalizing the online tabletop game community, GTO has decided to connect the GameTable Online and RPGTable Online game portals. Although they have separate URL addresses, they share the same registration process so with one registration you gain access to both board and role-playing games. Both use the same virtual currency system so the GTO Gold you purchase are in a single account that crosses over to both GTO and RPGTO. GTO users with existing GTO Coins will have those converted into GTO Gold on during the outage on August 1.

RPGTable Online, Dungeons & Dragons, and Other Game Systems:
Part of our agreement with Wizards of the Coast is that RPGTable Online shall not be an official Dungeons & Dragons game portal. As it was originally developed to be for 4th Edition D&D, there are many features designed with it in mind. Neither Wizards nor GTO wanted to throw all of that optimization away so we have it but some of it had to be de-branded. We will be going live with a 4E and a generic character sheet. In time GTO has plans to do similar optimization with other game systems or other versions of D&D. We want to RPGTable Online to be the choice virtual RPG tabletop for all RPG systems. Publishers interested in collaborating with RPGTable Online are welcome to contact us about collaborating at info@gametableonline.com.

[drbell48]

Thanks for the update. Looks promising. I hope you are able to work out some way to import Monster Data. That is a huge help. Considering 3rd-party apps like Herolabs let you do it by providing your DDI username/password; hopefully you can find a way. Being able to import monsters and PCs is a key feature.

Definitely looking forward to more options for tokens, adventure sharing, tiles, etc. I'm willing to pay a reasonable subscription to have access to the extra features mentioned as long as we get good support. Based on the level of communication so far, I'm encouraged.

Good luck getting all the legal details worked out with Wizards!

[Felgrimm]

Thank you so much for this update. I was waiting with baited breath for more info for this great gaming tool. I will definitely be signing up for a subscription when it launches. =D

[frothsof]

i have a lot of monsters and i intend to share them pretty much immediately. what we need is a way to save/import monster files to/from our cpus from the gto table. if we can export monsters from it we will have all of them. it might be a roundabout way to do it, but faster than manually entering them

this looks good so far, i am glad it will be free to play, if all you want to do is play

[Eshla78]

Glad to hear the character builder will still be in use.

[frothsof]

Glad to hear the character builder will still be in use.

even better, when the cb goes down one day, you can just upload saved pcs from your cpu, you dont have to use the ddi cloud at all

[Agonar]

Thank you Rob.. for everything. I think I have seen more communication from you regarding the move, VT, etc, than I ever saw from Wizards.

18 days after the announcement that GTO was taking over, we have a pricepoint, plan, subscription options.. listed. It's been nearly 2 years since VT started with wotc seemingly never even thinking of the price point, or even of taking it LIVE, instead of leaving it in Beta.

I have a few questions though.

There doesn't seem to be any mention of how many tables we can have "up" at a time. Since free accounts don't seem to have map/adventure cloud storage, it would be nice to know if we can leave our maps/adventures loaded on tables

Also, Might there be plans in the works for block subscription plans/discounts. $7.99 a month, or a slight discount if you pre-pay for 3, 6, 12 months at a time. Personally, I would rather pay for a year once, instead of being charged each month

Thank you for any info on the matter, and thank you for doing this,

Agonar

[RobEng]

Agonar,
Thanks for your kind words about our communication levels. Going through your questions, you can host 25 campaigns active and join in another 50. The 7.99/month price is at the annual billing. If you go for the monthly billing it is $9.99/month and the quarterly comes to $8.99.

[frothsof]

Agonar,
Thanks for your kind words about our communication levels. Going through your questions, you can host 25 campaigns active and join in another 50. The 7.99/month price is at the annual billing. If you go for the monthly billing it is $9.99/month and the quarterly comes to $8.99.

that leaves me with another question. so right now, none of us have subs to your service, so when you say you are transeferring our tables over, are you talking about saved tables from the cloud, or simply tables we have open in the campaign manager? hopefull its the former, or there could be a lot of last second frantic motion

this will be important to a lot of people

[RobEng]

that leaves me with another question. so right now, none of us have subs to your service, so when you say you are transeferring our tables over, are you talking about saved tables from the cloud, or simply tables we have open in the campaign manager? hopefull its the former, or there could be a lot of last second frantic motion

this will be important to a lot of people

We will bringing over both your active campaigns as well as your cloud saved adventure and the art items you have included in them. Essentially what we are going to do is take all of the data that is associated with your VT campaigns and assign them to your GTO profile.

[frothsof]

that leaves me with another question. so right now, none of us have subs to your service, so when you say you are transeferring our tables over, are you talking about saved tables from the cloud, or simply tables we have open in the campaign manager? hopefull its the former, or there could be a lot of last second frantic motion

this will be important to a lot of people

We will bringing over both your active campaigns as well as your cloud saved adventure and the art items you have included in them. Essentially what we are going to do is take all of the data that is associated with your VT campaigns and assign them to your GTO profile.

ok. i basically opened all of my adventures AND saved them to the cloud bc i didnt know how it would work

[MorphoPracktix]

Looks good
Can't wait to get back in the game!

[Gehrigan]

Thank you to Rob Eng and all the staff at GTO for your dedication and for recognising the potential of this Virtual Table. I hope to see it become the premier RPG table online.

[Gordanian]

I must also mention RobEng that your companies commitment to this transition, and your gallant judgement to purchase a true gem that WoTC failed at quite miserably brings me to a knee. I am so astound for what is to come, and what GTO will have to offer in improvements. Having read your current ideas, improvements in updates, purchasable content, new tiles set, tokens, etc. is EVERYTHING I've been longing WoTC would do.

Leave it to the "pro's" I suppose, right? Truthfully I expected nothing less from GTO and you guys have my vote! Can't wait for it's release on Thursday!! You have made a believer out of me, and a long time subscriber for years to come.

Thank you again for your hard work and dedication.

-DMGordanian

[frothsof]

that leaves me with another question. so right now, none of us have subs to your service, so when you say you are transeferring our tables over, are you talking about saved tables from the cloud, or simply tables we have open in the campaign manager? hopefull its the former, or there could be a lot of last second frantic motion

this will be important to a lot of people

We will bringing over both your active campaigns as well as your cloud saved adventure and the art items you have included in them. Essentially what we are going to do is take all of the data that is associated with your VT campaigns and assign them to your GTO profile.

just get us those monsters (or get a monster export/import from cpus) and we will be set! play hardball!